Her Mother’s Hope is the first of two books in a series by Francine Rivers.

It follows the journey of Marta from age 12 up until about 55 as well as following her daughter for a good chunk of the story. Marta starts off living in Switzerland with her mother father and younger sister and then moves from there to England via france and then Canada for a few years before finally settling with the entire family she has by then in California. Her life is far from easy and it takes the girl/woman a lot of guts to do many of the things she eventually does.

Her daughter, Hildemara, is almost the exact opposite of Marta and this is where a lot of the later story focuses. All the failing Marta saw in her family growing up, and in herself to some degree, are not wanted for her daughter and as such she pushes Hildemara to be something she’s not. I really don’t think this is anything that new as I think 90% of my friends get pushed by their parents in directions that from their point of view aren’t helpful but from their parents point of view are. It’s just one of those things of life.

What I did find gave it a fresh viewpoint though was how Francine Rivers managed to make you relate to not just the mother or the daughter but to both. You could see that they both wanted what was best for each other and that most of the time it was all just misunderstanding. Because they didn’t talk enough about life, misunderstanding led to hurt, which led to walls going up, which led to more misunderstandings etc, and the cycle went on.

I got to the end of the book and I just wanted to sit them both down and make them talk about their lives to each other, so both would understand that the other loved them, despite not always showing it in the right way. It also made me think, maybe I should take a bit mroe time next time I’m with close family and just make sure that they know I care.